


softly

by ignitesthestars



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Training, enemies to ????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:17:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5479607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitesthestars/pseuds/ignitesthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One year, to the date, Rey tracks him down and accepts Kylo Ren's offer of training.</p>
            </blockquote>





	softly

**Author's Note:**

> the summary was the plot!

He doesn’t make it hard for her to find him.

He never has. Rey had thought to take advantage of that, once or twice. Round up the Resistance, follow the trail. But it always goes cold, petering out in a hail of blaster fire or worse. General Organa reminds her that all Resistance fighters know what they’re signing up for, that she cannot carry the weight of Kylo Ren’s sins on her shoulders.

But General Organa’s spine sags when she knows no one is looking. Rey never sees it, but she knows anyway, and thinks about all of the people she has led to their deaths.

There is an answer to the situation. It’s an unsettling thing - terrifying, actually, when she thinks about it too long. She focusses on her training and tries not to think at all, to become one with the Force. Master Luke senses her distraction anyway, because of course he does. She doesn’t call him master for fun.

“It’s not your job to fix my mistakes,” he tells her softly.

He has done most things softly, since she met him, but there’s nothing timid about the man. She smiles back at him. She is learning the power in being gentle. “His choices aren’t your choices. You didn’t make him do any of this.”

Luke says nothing, but she hears it anyway, in the lines on his face and the set of his body. _I made him, though._

She hates it. That one man could commit the crimes, and leave others to feel his guilt.

She tries not to hate it. It’s not very Jedi-like of her.

* * *

Finn knows, when she starts to consider. Her best friend - how could she not? He sprawls next to her in the  _Falcon_ , nudging at a holochess figure as he talks.

“I don’t wanna tell you not to go,” he says. “Because you have to do your thing, and I get that.”

“But.”

“I didn’t say there was a but.”

“You’re looking at me like there’s a but.”

A grin flashes over his face, as quick and as bright as a star. It dies just as spectacularly. “I’d miss you. And I’d worry. No one wants to deal with me when I’m worrying, I get all high-pitched and babbly.”

“That is the worst,” she agrees, and hugs him. She can’t give him the words he needs to hear.

* * *

Poe lends her BB-8. It’s on the tip of her tongue to say no, but the droid starts to purr at her again and - she can’t. She can’t.

“I’ll bring her back safely,” she promises.

The pilot taps on BB’s head. “That’s why I want you to take her. The two of you are pretty good at getting each other out of tight spots.”

* * *

She leaves the Falcon with Chewie. It just doesn’t seem like a good idea to take it, all things considered.

* * *

He doesn’t make it hard for her to find him.

* * *

He sits with his back to her, in the ruin of a temple. The place seems both old and recently destroyed. Someone tried to make something here, and failed.

Or succeeded all to well.

“You aren’t yet ready to embrace the Dark Side,” he notes, not turning to face her. His voice is human, soft. The mask sits at his side. Did he take it off, just for her?

“You said you’d teach me,” she bites back. “If you don’t think you’re convincing enough, that’s not my problem.”

“Then why come?”

 _To kill you. To defeat you. To bring you back to the light._  Rey isn’t sure which one is the right answer, so she stalks around his form, stands in front of him with her hands on his hip.

A pale red furrow splits his face. She has made her mark on him.

“To learn.”


End file.
